Get to the Choppers! - Spring Bluefish
- Nick Honachefsky
- Apr 17
- 5 min read
By Nick Honachefsky
Spring Bluefish enter the baywaters
No better way to talk about bluefishing then starting out with the timeless quote from Schwarzenegger because spring bluefishing is an all out battle. Choppers, slammers, gators, gorillas – whatever you call ‘em, bluefish certainly earn their nicknames. When roving packs of blues invade the backwaters, bays and surf, nothing is safe. Blues maniacally rip through the waters with knife-wielding maws equipped to shred, tear and destroy baitfish and lures alike, and it makes for some hands-down adrenaline pumping action. From back bays to inlets to out front, its time to prepare your battle gear for action.
SPRING INVASION
Coming up from wintering over offshore and in the Carolinas, bluefish start their migratory push northward along the Northeast Coast usually during the mid-month portion of April, inundating New Jersey waters through May where they push up toward New England waters off Long Island and the Cape to continue their onslaught through June and the summer months. In Jersey a Nor’Easter during the second to third week of April usually kicks off the bluefish push into the waters as they are brought in and attracted into the bays by bunker schools, but May is the prime time month for all-day action.
Jersey witnessed an onslaught of major caliber fish that pushed 15 to 24 pounds in the recent years of 2016 to 2019 that absolutely destroyed dreams and kept tackle shops in business. Since then, Jersey has had a lack of steady spring bluefishing as smaller size fish of 2 to 6 pounds generally only came in for a couple of weeks and skipped by the area to move into the waters off Long Island and Cape Cod where action on gator class blues has been omnipresent. Bluefish seem to come in school classes where 4 to 6 pounders, 8 to 12 pounders, then 14 to 20 pound plus fish hang together. Reason being smaller blues are not exempt from being attacked and eaten from larger fish. Generally speaking, “racer” blues are the first to show, skinny from wintering over where a normal 14 pound class length blue will be 8 or 9 pounds. However, in recent years, first wave blues have already been fat and happy with full guts from feeding on the usually present bunker schools that have made a rebound.
TOSSING TOPWATERS
Nothing buckles your knees like bluefish crushing a topwater popper. Strikes are violent and unforgiving. The first rule of tossing topwater lures for bluefish is to get rid of the treble hooks on any plug or popper and replace them with single hooks. If you choose not to heed that advice, well, as the southern folks say, bless your heart. The crazed thrashing of bluefish on deck or at boatside will invariably fling the lure into your hands, clothing or worse. I cannot tell you how many treble hooks I’ve had to pull out of people, so please, replace the trebles. That said, the aggressive nature of blues calls for topwater action. Utilize heavy 50 to 60-pound leader tied to a 100-pound TA Clip and bring out the crappiest lures you have and won’t mind losing. Any popper or hard slidebait will usually work but I gravitate to Yo-Zuri Hydro poppers, Savage Gear Pencil Poppers and Island X Sidewinders, which already come with single in line hooks. Of course if you have an old school Atom Popper, by all means throw it on as the hard plastic construction is built for the damage done by bluefish. Work poppers frantically creating as much commotion as possible to make them aware of the “fleeing baitfish” and set the hook hard, fighting the fish with a heavier drag setting to muscle in the fish. If netting a fish, be sure to use rubber nets over the mesh nets as you will have less tangles from a flopping blue and be able to release the fish faster.
HEAVY METAL
Sometimes during the spring, blues will stay deeper and that’s when to bring out the metals. Most metal lures come equipped with single hooks so that box is checked off, plus they can take a real beating. Ava jigs are the go-to lure from size 007 to A27 in the backwaters where they can be cast and retrieved at a moderate pace before you get a sudden stop hit from the chopper. Other lures that work well are Crippled Herring 1-ounce jigs, Deadly Dicks and RonZ glass minnows. Metals are great for unhooking fish as you can usually grab the metal itself instead of the leader to control and handle the fish more safely. I find that metals will work better than poppers if the water temps are in the low to mid 50s. It should also be said here to leave any and all rubber baits at home for obvious reasons, unless you have an unlimited budget to lose lures on every cast.
PRETTY FLY
If you’ve had your fill of bluefish on standard lures, why not elevate your game and bring out the longrod. A 9 to 10 weight rod is sufficient, so long as your tippet is upped to 30 or 40 pound line. Clouser and Deceiver Flies will get beaten up pretty good, so you only have about a dozen blues to catch before the fly becomes dehaired and needs to be replaced, unless you opt to fling out epoxies like Surf Candies. The battle on the longrod is unparalleled with ripping runs and aerial antics from the gators and is surely a way to get your blood pumping. Strip quickly when you come upon a pack of blues, or have an angler sample the area with a popper to see if any blues are around before you whip out a fly cast.
PREDICTIONS
Will Jersey see the big blues again this spring or will they simply bypass straight to New England? With warmer than average winter waters, the spring run could be bone-jarring. Bunker schools are already thick and if the schools are pushed inside the bays from easterly blows, blues could very well pack inside the bays and stick there for weeks on end as they did in Jersey only a few years ago. Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure: You had better prepare correctly to tackle the blitzkrieg of blues for they wait for no man or angler and have no qualms about crushing your dreams when they are on their feeding frenzy.
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